Sara Taylor

Sara Taylor is a novelist and short-story writer whose work explores the social construction of identity, family, and sexuality. Their first novel, The Shore, follows the turning points in the lives of several generations of residents of a remote series of islands as they come into conflict with the landscape, each other and themselves; it explores the concepts of gender and responsibility, the limits of loyalty and the complications of relationship over the span of 300 years. It was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book award, the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year award and the Golden Tentacle for debut speculative fiction, and longlisted for the Baileys Women’s prize.

In 2017, Sara completed the PhD in Creative and Critical Writing at the University of East Anglia with a thesis on the censorship of U.S. public school literature textbooks in the twentieth century in response to conservative Christian activism, and the way that this censorship has impacted education. While at UEA they co-founded Seam Editions, a publisher presenting creative critical writing online and in print. They were an Eccles Centre writer in residence at the British Library in 2019, and conducted research on eugenics in America, involuntary sterilisation, and the impact of both on vulnerable populations. Sara has taught classes and workshops ranging from foundation skills to specialist fiction seminars, and been invited to speak about their writing and research nationally and internationally.

They were elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2018.